Nascar Season Promises Many Twists And Turns

Al Pearce

January 15, 2000|By AL PEARCE Daily Press

Some of the highlights of this week's 17th annual NASCAR Media Tour hosted by the Lowe's Charlotte Motor Speedway:

TUESDAY: Former Langley Speedway winners Elton Sawyer and Ashton Lewis are among two dozen Busch Series drivers invited to lunch at a hotel in Charlotte. Sawyer is sporting a soft cast on his left thumb, the result of - we kid you not - a golfing accident almost two months ago.

"But I've already tested at Lakeland (Fla.) and Talladega (Ala.), and it didn't bother me a bit,'' the 40-year-old Chesapeake native says. "In fact, I didn't know it was broken until Monday, when I went for my NASCAR physical. I asked the doc to X-ray it because it had bothered me in November and December, and that's when I found out it was broken.''

While Sawyer is No. 2 in all-time Busch Series starts, Lewis is embarking on his Busch career with his unsponsored, family-owned No. 46 Chevrolet team. "Our superspeedway car is about ready and we're getting close with our intermediate-track cars,'' says Lewis, an Old Dominion University-educated engineer. "We lost about a week in December when NASCAR suddenly changed some of the rollbar rules. There's only seven of us in the shop, and that set us back more than it would have set back a bigger team.''

WEDNESDAY: No matter how ready he is - and it sounds like he's ahead of schedule - team owner Ray Evernham says he won't debut a Dodge this year. "The 2001 Daytona 500 will be the race,'' he says at breakfast. "We've already taken a scale-model car to the wind tunnel and we'll take a full-sized car to a tunnel by the middle of next month.

"We expect to do on-track testing by late March or early April, then present the car to NASCAR for approval by the middle of the summer. We'll test it at Atlanta, give NASCAR all the technical data, then wait for them to approve it. Even if they do it pretty quickly, we still won't race it until next year. We have 28 cars to build - 14 for each of our drivers - so we don't want to force anything.''

As for who his 2001 drivers might be: "I want a veteran with some credentials and a name, and I want a young driver with talent and potential,'' he says. "I want the veteran as a cornerstone and the young guy to be our future. I'd love to hire them today, but we're not in position to.''

* It's somewhat surprising when Dale Earnhardt greets us at his shop, given his recent neck surgery. "I get tired in the afternoon and can't do some things I want to do,'' he says after dinner, "but I feel pretty good. It's fixed, it's done and I'm over it - but I probably won't test until we get to Daytona Beach (the middle of next month) for the 500.''

With that, he was gone - but not before saying: "This will be a good year for us. We made some strides last year (when he won three races), so maybe this is the year we win that eighth championship.''

THURSDAY: How many times in recent years have we heard Darrell Waltrip reassure us he's about to return to victory lane? Well, how many times have we been to ol' DW's shop on the tour?

"We've made tremendous improvements since last year,'' he says during a stop at Carter-Haas Racing in Statesville. "We have a much better chance to be competitive than last year, which was a pretty tough year. We have good cars and great Robert Yates engines, and it's all about chemistry.

"I don't know if we can win a lot, but I know we can win a race. Pocono, maybe. Or Martinsville or even Daytona Beach. We have the right chemistry to excel this year.

* The Wood brothers of Stuart, Va., will spend all of 2000 celebrating their 50th year in stock car racing. Perhaps fittingly, David Pearson, their most successful driver, was at their shop to kick off the celebration.

"These guys were so far ahead of their time,'' Pearson says, motioning toward team founders Glen and Leonard Wood. "They were adjusting their cars and measuring their tires long before anybody else was. Except for Martinsville, I don't think we ever went anywhere that I didn't think we could win.''

Would Pearson, who retired after making two starts in 1986, like to start again? "No,'' he says. "Why? Because I'd make a lot of money in a hurry, but I wouldn't have any time to enjoy it. The way things are now, drivers don't have any time to themselves, no time to enjoy life.''

FRIDAY: With one glaring exception, all of NASCAR's Pontiac teams show up for a mid-morning briefing at Lowe's Motor Speedway. The exception is Kyle Petty and John Andretti, and team owner Richard Petty. The folks from Pontiac say Petty Enterprises was invited, but had other commitments.

Most of the media - avowed cynics that we are - figured Petty (Richard) blew off the gathering because he didn't want to face the inevitable questions about switching to Dodges for 2001. "It's a done deal,'' fellow Pontiac team-owner Bill Davis savs quietly. "Everybody knows that they're going Dodge next year. And we're going to do it, too. They're doing it right, believe me.''

Nearby, 1999 Rookie of the Year Tony Stewart is putting another Dodge rumor to rest. "Last night, I re-signed for four more years with Joe Gibbs Racing,'' he says. "There, I've done it. Now, you people can quit writing about me going to Dodge - or wherever else you had me going. (Crew chief) Greg Zipadelli and I are married to each other and to this team through 2004. After last year, why would either of us want to go anywhere else.''

* As usual, the tour's last stop is a yawner. Jeff Gordon is excited about 2000. New crew chief Robbie Loomis is happy to be with a championship-caliber team. New crew chief Gary DeHart is happy to be back with Terry Labonte (and vice versa). Rick Hendrick looks and sounds well, his leukemia apparently in full remission. And new driver Jerry Nadeau and crew chief Tony Furr promise plenty of surprises.

Al Pearce can be reached at 757-247-4641 or by e-mail at apearce@dailypress.com